I went to the March for Science yesterday! It didn't have as many people as the Women's March but then what would? It still took a solid two hours to get everyone funnelled down Constitution Avenue.

Also if you are ever at the Capitol end of Constitution with a few minutes to kill, go look at The Spirit of Haida Gwaii outside the Canadian Embassy; it's in a nice quiet corner and I found more to see in that one sculpture than in the entire National Gallery sculpture garden.


...also if you are ever on the Mall and need wifi, find an idling coach bus to loiter near.

I brought Growing Up Weightless by John M. Ford to read on the metro, and I don't have a huge amount to say because basically ( it was everything I wanted for a book about coming of age in the Moon colony )

It is July! And I have written over 75,000 words of fiction! Which means I met my year's goal in only six months. Hooray! Granted, the magic spreadsheet says that only about 43000 of those are finished+posted, and 71,000 were for the d_f anon meme (which means I have 28000 words of WIP sitting on the anon meme, shhh.)

What I should aim to do for the rest of the year is either: a) turn out 75000 words of original fiction, or b) increase the finished/unfinished ratio. Or I could just keep filling random meme prompts as long as the meme goes on. I am... debating.

***

Yard sailing today! No big sales, probably due to the holiday, so all I ended up with was $1.75 in: Two Dover coloring books and an "Easy-To-Make Castle" book (the Dover books are Art Deco, and Dinosaurs with Feathers. The Castle is a gag gift for certain people who have spent three years trying to build a castle;) also a half-gallon plastic water bottle to replace the one that failed me awhile back.

***

So commodorified posted We Have Fed You All A Thousand Years, a music mix for going to the barricades; and then sara posted De America, Yo Soy, her mix of angry leftist music, and then lotesse posted Oh, Freedom on a similar theme. And I downloaded them all, and they are all awesome. If you have any leftist passion in your heart, you should go listen.

So I thought I'd pay it on.

Only, nearly all of my going-to-the-barricades music is still trapped on the external hard drive that failed, so I'm cheating. :P This is a songmix that's been sitting on my hard drive for almost two and a half years - since January 21, 2009, in fact. What it is, basically, is my account of going to see Barack Obama's presidential inauguration, done as a fanmix instead of a journal or a photopost - a combination of songs that were played there, songs that should have been played there, and songs that got stuck in my head anyway. I meant to post it way back then, but kept coming up with new things to tweak, and it didn't happen.

So, given the occasion, it's less go-to-the-barricades and more 'cautious hope liberally mixed with engrained bitterness and cynicism', but I figured what with the new election campaign starting up AUUUUUUUGGGHHH, and the holiday and stuff, maybe I'd finally post it.

( Party at the Crossroads )

Party at the Crossroads / 100 mb / direct download

I just had a dream that there exists an episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series in which certain department heads on the U.S.S. Enterprise (headed by Captain Kirk) had taken to buying antique hardcovers of classic novels and leaving them lying around the Engineering break rooms in an attempt to wean Scotty off his technical manuals by giving him books that are beautiful hardware in their own right, with the result that Scotty and Cupcake and several other Engineering redshirts have started an enthusiastic book club that is reading the Valdemar novels.

And this animated episode I was watching even included a fairly long segment of what was actually happening in the novel they were discussing, in which Vanyel was drawn to quite closely resemble Spock in a glittery lavender version of Vulcan robes, and spent most of his time crying. In the rain. (As basically all I know about Valdemar is that Vanyel is gay and tragic, there are soulbonded horses, and the covers of my copies are pink and purple and sparkle, I'm kind of impressed with my brain for coming up with that. And traumatized.)

I'm not sure if I want to write that story more or less than I now want the Hot Fuzz story where Danny lends Nick the Valdemar books.

****

Anyway, I've been kind of vaguely following the FictionAlley vs. Pepsi controversy, and while it would probably be smarter of me not to, I feel compelled to add my $.02 American. (Look, me reading up on the intersection of neoliberal capitalism and self-enforced gift economies totally counts as research for my NaNo, okay? And sadly, that's actually true, and I only just now realized that part of what the economics in my novel is commenting on is fandom.)

( This whole meta section here is just so I don't feel like I made a post just to talk about Scotty and Vanyel, because my subconscious thinks you guys expect more than that of me. If Scotty and Vanyel is a sufficient post for you, please do skip this section. )

...although to be honest I would have seriously considered going just so I could jump for Adam and Jamie. :D

Some notes from the Rally, mostly covering things that wouldn't have shown up on the TV coverage:

( Some random notes on the Rally )

Anyway: Jon and Stephen live are adorbs. I hope Mitchell and Brooker are that adorable when they get their live show. And are forced to sing just as much.

( 12 photos, mostly crowd shots )

Here is the list of things I need to do before leaving for the Rally in DC tomorrow:

( list )

Sorry about that, but I was working at church for most of the day today, so I know I will be up until all hours getting ready for tomorrow, and at that point I need to make a very detailed list of things while my brain is still working, so I thought I'd share the joy with you.

Also while I am doing all that, I will be listening to the rest of the A Wizard on Mars audiobook I got from the library when it became clear they were never going to order a paper version. I'm about halfway through, and all I've got so far is ( Do I still need a spoiler cut for AWoM? )

Welcome to your biennial edition of Melannen's Local Elections Voting Guide, special expanded insiders edition 2010!

(What "special expanded insiders edition" means is that I've just come back from being a presenter person at the big county candidates' question night and spent most of two hours staring at the backs of their heads. So I totes have special knowledges, all.)

Also, inspired by the lolitics' Top Trumps project, as well as mention of actual policy of varied seriousness, I will also be rating the candidates who I saw tonight on scales of Hotness, Accessorization, Durpiness, and Douchiness.

( Maryland State Governor's Race )

( Comptroller )

( Attorney General )

( U. S. Senator )

( House of Representatives District 3 )

...okay, now we move on to the races with people who actually bothered to show up at the Candidates' Question Time tonight.

( State Senator District 32 )

( House of Delegates District 32 )
( Special Bonus District 31 Section! )

( County Executive )

( County Council )

( Judges )

( State's Attorney )

( Sheriff )

( Board of Education )

( The State Ballot Questions )

( The County Ballot Questions )

And that's the ballot! Aren't elections fun?

I was reading rm's PSA on Queer and it occured to me that one could, in fact, make a simple nine-patch quilted totebag, with eight symbols around and the rainbow flag in the middle.

G would probably be a pink triangle, either patchwork or applique.
A would probably be the AVEN triangle, though one could use the new flag.
B would be the pink-lavender-blue flag or triangle.
T would probably be either the three-pronged symbol (applique) or the pink-white-blue flag.
L would probably be either the linked symbols or a labrys; this would have to be applique.
for I I don't know; I don't know of any pride symbols for this specifically (please tell me if there is one!) but one could use the three-pronged symbol here and the flag for T
U would probably just be a question mark
Q again I don't know; if one uses the rainbow as the center square, what goes here? There is the queer anarchy flag, but that has a specific political meaning; I'm almost tempted to go with the leather flag, as that takes in some of the queer communities that often are sidelined in GLBT and also would be fun to patchwork, but it also excludes a lot of queerness. An applique lambda might work, though (or maybe a rainbow here and lambda in the center? Or rainbow flag for Q, and the center square embroidered QUILTBAG?)

For the liner/backing, I am regretting the fact that I always throw out the incredibly ugly prints with vomit-green cabbage roses that seem to inexplicably recur. :P

And you could do one side of the bag nine-patch, and the other side as one large square for some specific identity/community that's yours and isn't specifically in the acronym: two-spirit, blue-feather, a subset of trans*, bear, poly, faerie, pansexual, bdsm, pflag, a traditional log cabin or stone wall patchwork pattern, or some combination or personal symbol that IDs the bag's owner specifically...

Anybody have any better ideas for the symbols to use for QUILTBAG, or objections to the ones I used? Anybody else interested in making or owning one of these? :D


(...we are not even going to talk about the dozen crafting/mending projects already in progress, no. Anyway two of those involve patchwork already, and if I have to pull out all the quilting stuff I might as well start a new project too, right?)


And speaking of activism and symbols, I am totally going to the Rally to Restore Sanity. (Did anybody doubt this for a second? :D) I will be bringing a sign which displays the H in Sunrays, of course. Though I am debating coming up with one with an actual political message or international fake news reference as well. Who else is going? Does anybody want to get together a whole group with h-in-sunrays signs?

You know that old saying about how democracy is like sausage: you'll feel much better about it if you never see it in progress?

Yeah, don't ever sign up as an election judge or a meat inspector.


(Also, Candidate Middlebrooks' wife showed up to observe and get immediate vote totals. Guess how many times I accidentally called her Mrs. Milliband! Go on, guess!)


Here are the Completely Useless Skills^{(pat. pending)} I showed off to my fellow election judges while waiting to see if any voters would actually show up for a non-presidential primary election where none of the races were being seriously contested.

( Make a three-story-high tower out of voting machine security cards )

( Make a 'beaded' necklace out of 'I voted' stickers and paperclips )

( Make a basic paper spring out of the backing strips from a roll of 'I voted' stickers that you used to make a necklace )

( Make a kleenex carnation )

( Make a rotating three-dimensional projection of a four-dimensional hypercube out of nothing but paperclips )

(Oh, and some voters actually did show up! Although many of them were confused and thought they were there to vote on something else entirely. This is, sadly, true.)

This is the handout I wrote for Sunday's panel on fandom and copyright. I am posting it here because it is fifteen freaking pages long and I hope some people will read along on their netbooks and I don't need as many paper copies. But people not at con-txt are welcome to enjoy.

This is html-converted using OpenOffice; I apologize if it's ugly, I cheated because it's, um, 5:30 AM the day of the panel and I haven't slept yet. If you would rather download a .doc file, click this link: Copyleft and Copyright Handout.

( Fandom, Copyright and Copyleft: The Basics of Intellectual Property for Fans )

1. I posted a tutorial on how to set up an OpenID account on Journalfen to getting_started, so if anyone has JF comments importd here that they'd like to eventually claim, they should mark it. (metafandom is still linking to the draft version of the tutorial, but hopefully that will change.)

/me officially washes her hands of S2 forever.

2. /me has sauntered vaugely downward into the #dw irc channel. Curse you, Opera, why did you make that so easy?

If previous experience with IRC stands, I will stay in channel for about a week, and then get behind and never go back. But hEll bot is adorable.

3. damned_colonial posted this meme:
Comment on this post. I will choose seven interests from your profile and you will explain what they mean and why you are interested in them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so others can play along.
...and I told myself that the next time somebody I read posted it, I would do it. So:
( local politics, regional soft drinks, spike jones, the primordial ass, crossovers, fleegix, and oracular pigs )

PS: Is anyone else getting an occasionally-recurring error when they try to preview from the web interface? I keep getting: [Error: Can't call method "imgtag" on unblessed reference at '/home/dw/current/htdocs/preview/entry.bml' line 106. @ dfw-web02]

Unblessed indeed, DW. Unblessed indeed.

The tracks can all be individually downloaded at http://melannen.katycat.net/fanmix/calm/ .

(here you see the difference between "this fanmix is a work of art!" and "I need to do this so I don't go insane. Might as well share!")

...'cause, yeah, you can bet I'll need to have this on repeat *all day* tomorrow.

(How are Jon and Stephen not doing a live webcast?? *weeps*)

These people? My people.

Also my people!

I missed the debate tonight because I was at a rehearsal for our local faith-based social justice umbrella group's annual October summit meeting. (Their website is still of teh suck, alas.) So have my biennial "Pay attention to politics" post: Time to check to see what's on your ballot that isn't a national race, and decide which ones you care about, and where you stand. Just 'cause the presidential and senate races are big, doesn't mean local candidates and ballot items aren't important! They may be *more* important, in terms of directly impacting your quality of life.

There is even a Wiki for checking your local ballot measures now. So no excuses, my fellow Americans! If it has a wiki, it must be important, right? :D

Maryland has two constitutional amendments up for popular vote this year, but they're both big ones: slot machines (on which there seem to be only two possible positions: a) I think it will make me, directly, richer! and b) God no. On the upside, it's totally not split along party lines) and early voting, about which I have yet to decide, but it is also a big issue this election cycle.

...Anyway, tomorrow being currently open, I plan to make it my Day Of Getting Things Done That I Have Been Putting Off, to wit: gardening, clean bathroom, post one of the ficlets I owe, officially re-open lj, post book giveaway lists, work on art, catch up on reviews, post a fanmix, update resume, turn the compost, do Sarah's mending.

We shall see.

( spoilers, obviously. )

Other than that, the only thing wrong with the movie was too many action scenes, and too little Bruce Wayne hanging around in jeans and a Henley, snarking at Alfred and doing engineer-y and CEO-y stuff. So I should probably just go see Iron Man already.

Also someone needs to come up with an excuse to get Lucius Fox in an Iron Man suit.

And Katie Holmes looks way too much like Princess Leia.

I give you a subtle visual metaphor for the relationship between corporate power and the common people, by which I mean a scan of
( Archie Andrews getting butt-raped by Satan )

...I bet you thought I was kidding!

Ooh, have a bonus panel:
( Jughead's nuts being groped )

These are both scans from "Archie's Clean Slate", today's trophy from the $.50 back-issue bins, which was published, under license, by Spire Christian Comics. An amazing comic, from the publisher possibly best-known these days for Hansi, the Girl who Loved the Swastika.

Interesting in several protest-related ways: first, because in the 21st century, Archie Comics is absolutely totalitarian about copyright (any fellow devotees of the gone-but-not-forgotten Improved Archie will want to note that in this comic, Betty is in fact a Crazy Christian). Second, because "Clean Slate" was attempting to appeal to hip young people in 1973, and it appears to be trying to position environmentalism as a Christian issue at the same time it's trying to convert people to Christianity, with the result that it does both very, very badly. (It also attempts to harness the power of SCIENCE, btw. I quote: "Copernicus cures celestial myopia!" "And Christ cures spiritual blindness!")

Also it features Jughead as an anthropomorphic kangaroo.

That is all.

I am really, really tired of hearing people going around talking about how the planned LJ strike for tomorrow is useless and stupid and therefore nobody should bother taking part in it.

( In summary: Why do you hate America? )

I spent most of this afternoon measuring out chalklines to screw sheetrock to 16" studs. As a result, the Decembrists' 16 by 32 is *still* stuck in my head.

Somehow, this is all Stephen Colbert's fault.

In that mode, let's trying playing the new game that siegeofangels came up with the other day: load five songs at random, and figure out how they apply to John Sheppard and Atlantis (since all songs, after all, can be vidded to John/Atlantis : that's a basic law of fandom.)

Here's what I've got:
Da Vinci's Notebook - Window Washing Cowboy : okay, so this is a story about the tragic love life of a man who is very, very fond of tall building with lots of glass, and has a vaguely comic death-wish. That's pretty much John/Atlantis all the way. (Plus, the make 'em shiny clean chorus would have so much "oh my god John, you di'n't" potential.)

Dido - White Flag : This has always been a Jack Sparrow/Black Pearl Song to me, with Jack singing Dido's part because the Pearl left him for Barbossa but he just won't *let it go* already. But, you know: insane man/inanimate seafaring object: it would be so easy to re-map as Atlantis singing it to John - and it would be even *better* that way, because you would re-interpret it from a woman who won't let a relationship go, to a woman whose devotion is teaching her to fight to the end for *herself* because he makes her learn to value herself, and it would be kickass and end with John making the city fly. Yes.

Garth Brooks - Two Pina Coladas : This one starts with Jack tempting John out of Antarctica to Atlantis ("he said that heartaches are healed by the sea") and really is a love story between John and Atlantis, John falling in love with the city and knowing she loves him back (and whenever he asks for something, she gives it to him) with flashbacks to his horrible backstory on Earth.

(any of fifty bajillion covers) - Hallelujah : This one's kind of a gimme, becaue it's another law of fandom that Hallelujah can be vidded to any character or pairing, but - "the secret chord?" "the hallelujah"? This is set after one of the many times when Pegasus and the Ancients betray John, and he's lost all his faith because he's been hurt and people have been *killed* - he's killed people for *her* - and Atlantis doesn't even understand why he *cares*, but he walks though her corridors and he feels her hallelujah singing through his veins with his blood and he knows he can never leave her no matter how much he comes to hate her.

Eagles - Hotel California : Hotel California is actually an outsider's view of the freaky relationship John (and, okay, the rest of the expedition, too) has with Atlantis: specifically, that of the Wraith they captured and experimented on. Atlantis is Hotel California (she got a lot of pretty, pretty boys she calls friends.) Or you could do it as just straight John/Atlantis, actually, with a sort of sinister twist where John is being seduced by Atlantis into accepting the ancient code of "ethics".

So in conclusion: Yes, it is possible to vid John/Atlantis to any arbitrary song. Now you try!

ETA: Some days, I wonder about how I ended up so fannish. Other days, I'm packing away the dollhouse furniture I played with in elementary school and find Starbuck and Apollo cuddled up together among the quilts. :D (I have no memory of ever owning Starbuck and Apollo action figures, and yet, there they were...)

Damn it, the two posts that I saw on m_f, jumped over here, and breathed a sigh of relief that nobody'd posted them JUST SHOWED UP. Dear flist: just because it's on metafandom and it's full of fail doesn't mean you should wank it.

In fact, if it's on metafandom it's probably full of Serious Business and you probably *shouldn't* wank it. Go look for something wacky and irrelevant, please.

(How quickly one gets jaded!)

Anyway, I went to do food prep for this fundraiser the local homeless shelter is doing, and as I was prepping about two hundred hard boiled eggs, I started thinking (as you do) about what the characters in my head would be doing in that situation.

Thing is, while the characters currently living in my head would totally have let themselves get roped into a church fundraiser, they live in early-copper-age Greece. Did they even *have* hen's eggs? I don't think they did. Did they have other kinds of eggs? (Were there quail eggs in Greece? Would there be quails in my alternate-fantasy-Greece with the Mediterranean landlocked?) Would they have fried things? What would they have fried them in (olive oil, I suppose? Or would there be animal grease to use for that? Is early Greek olive oil as messy as cheap American frying oils?) Was everyday cookware in the Mediterranean glazed, or sealed, or what? How would you have gotten grease out of it - did they have soap? Did they have hard soap? Would the rare copper have been used for cookware? (How would you cook in pots of unalloyed copper?) I know there would have been octopus and eel, but would there have been crab? How about other shellfish? Did they have mayonnaise? Would they have used cream sauces at all?

...sad thing is, last time I was working in this universe (NaNo four years ago) I actually read a book of Bronze Age recipes. Do I remember the relevant bits? NOOO. I have never missed being in walking distance of a University library more than now.

This is why I never get anywhere in actually writing my original fic. This is also why I was originally so attracted to fanfic - at least there, the canon is FINITE. 'Course, I still never get around to watching the canon when there's wikipedia articles I could be reading. It's also part of the reason I write in fantasy and SF universes instead of the real world; you can pick a point at which you've done enough research and it's time to just make shit up. (Not that I've ever gotten to that point. At least with the Copper Age mediterranean (and even more so when they eventually go to the Sahel) there will be a point at which I've exhausted what is currently known. I'm just not there yet. (I wonder if it would be a good use of my time to re-read Homer?)

If I ever get stuck and convinced everything I'm writing is utter crap? Remind me to go ding for a while. Yeah.

acadine has declared a Mary Sue goodfic challenge. Hence, an excuse for an attempt at my American DaDA teacher who saves Hogwarts and boffs an OoC Professor Snape . .

( he wasn't looking forward to this. )